Tag Archives: independence

The Royal Ethiopian Regiment

I just finished reading The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson. If the length of the title is any indication as to the length of the prose, be warned. At 550+ pages of 18th century writing by a classically trained slave, this book is a chore to read. It doesn’t help that very little happens. Which is all too bad. It’s a fascinating story of an escaped slave joining up with the British to become part of the Royal Ethiopian Regiment to fight the revolting Colonials.

I was curious about this Royal Ethiopian Regiment, though it probably had few if any actual Ethiopians in it. While the story is fiction, it’s based on fact. Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that any slaves escaped from rebels would be granted freedom for serving in the British Army. Some 800 were organized into the Royal Ethiopian Regiment, though they were never given much of a chance to fight. They were led into a trap at the Battle of Great Bridge and were later decimated by smallpox. Only 300 of the original 800 survived the eventual retreat to New York.

The story of black Loyalists in the American Revolution is interesting. The title of the book paints Octavian as a traitor, but what choice did he have? Traitor, slave, dead. Black Colonials had no hope of freedom, while the British often offered freedom as a way to encourage recruits and disrupt the colonists. Those promises were eventually honored and some of these black Loyalists were moved to Nova Scotia and later Sierra Leone.

There’s an interesting author’s note at the end of The Kingdom on the Waves that reads in part:

In the course of my research for this book, I have come to believe that the American Republic would not have survived its early years—would not have made it through the War of 1812—if it had not been fueled and funded by two profound acts of ethnic violence: the establishment of slavery and the annexation of Native American lands, both of which practices played a major part in the inception and conduct of the Revolution. The freedom—economic, social and intellectual—enjoyed by the vocal and literate elite of the early Republic would have been impossible if it had not been for the enslavement, displacement and destruction of others.

With so much whitewashed talk of our founding fathers, that’s perhaps a more realistic look. But they’re not alone in their guilt:

But it is easy to condemn the dead for their mistakes. Hindsight is cheap, and the dead can’t argue. It is harder to examine our own actions and to ask what abuses we commit, what conspicuous cruelties we allow to afford our luxuries, which of our deeds will be condemned by our children’s children when they look back upon us. We, too, are making decisions. We, too, have our hypocrisies, our systems of shame.

The Freedom to Disagree

I just finished reading Held at a Distance by Rebecca Haile. It’s a memoir about a woman who lived in Ethiopia until she was 10. Her father was wounded by the Derg in the aftermath of the revolution and her family eventually had to flee Ethiopia. The memoir is her experience returning to Ethiopia as a 36-year-old American.

I’ve been reading the book with the backdrop of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that has sent people into a tizzy—either expressing dismay at how the country is going down the toilet or complete euphoria that justice is coming to health care.

Full disclosure: Personally, I’m happy with the Supreme Court decision, though this doesn’t seem like a perfect law that’s going to fix the mess that is health care. I hope it’s a step forward. But I find the reaction to the decision more interesting than the decision itself. It makes me wonder how people have reacted to other historic court decisions. Were people this dismayed after the landmark 9-0 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that overturned segregation? (I’m not trying to compare this decision to that one in historic terms, just wondering how people have historically reacted)

All the cries of America going down the tubes seem especially disheartening to me. If anything, the will of the people has spoken. A law was passed by a Congress elected by a majority (multiple times—senators and representatives), signed into law by a president the majority elected, and upheld by a Supreme Court made up of justices appointed by past presidents from both parties and approved by a Senate controlled by both parties. Whether or not you agree with the decision, democracy happened. Complain all you want if you don’t like it, but this is government of the people, by the people and for the people. The law is constitutional, if you don’t like it you have all the legal power of democracy to change it. [Sidebar: And I hope my stance in this last paragraph would be the same no matter how the decision came out. It’s easy to make this statement when “your side” wins.]

Back to Ethiopia
I say all that because that’s what was going through my mind as I started reading about this family torn apart by military and socialist revolution in Ethiopia. When the government was overthrown in 1974, military rulers took over and imposed socialist ideals on an impoverished country. But it was really just a dictatorship disguised as socialism. Anyone who disagreed with the new government was seen as a threat. They were targeted, harassed, attacked and in many cases killed. The Derg’s iron-fisted rule continued until 1991 when they were overthrown. The government that followed is, according to Haile, less violent but more of the same. Dissenters are still arrested, censorship continues and the press is not truly free (I should note here that my understanding of Ethiopian politics is extremely limited and I’m basing all of these statements on Haile’s 2007 memoir. Take it with a grain of salt.)

An obvious lesson from Ethiopian history would be that when you can no longer disagree well with your political opponents, you’ve got a problem. When you vilify your opponents, you’re in trouble. You’re just a step away from outright attacking them. And when that happens you’re no longer pushing for a democratic ideal, you’re forcing your own opinion on someone else.

Today, the Fourth of July, is about celebrating our American Independence. As we celebrate and approach an election in the fall, we seem more divided than ever. But in our division, we must find a way to be united. We must find a peaceful way to disagree with our opponents. Disagree all you like, but democracy means that we come together and the majority rules under the Constitution (i.e., the majority might not have voted to end segregation, but it was still deemed unconstitutional).

Because the end of our independence happens when we’re afraid to disagree.